Samsung ninth going on fourth in foundry ranks, says GartnerNews & Analysis 4/2/2012 8 commentsThe worldwide semiconductor foundry market totaled $29.8 billion in 2011, a 5.1 percent increase from 2010, according to market research firm Gartner Inc. The top four foundries held their rankings from the previous year. But of those four only the leader, TSMC, increased its market share, taking it to 48.8 percent of the total foundry business.

IBM analytics to plumb universe's secretNews & Analysis 4/2/2012 9 commentsIBM will harness water-cooled 3-D chip sets to plumb the secrets of the universe by analyzing exabytes (billion gigabytes) of data streaming in from the world's largest radio telescope to be constructed in 2024.

Analyst: ASML holds all the cards in lithoNews & Analysis 4/2/2012 7 commentsLithography tool vendor ASML commanded a higher share of units shipped in 2011 than the combined total of competitors Nikon and Canon, further evidence that the Dutch firm has come to dominate which was only a few years ago a close three-horse race, according to the Information Network, a market research firm.